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Tuesday, July 28, 2009

This video shows U.S. photographer Spencer Tunick instructing and photographing hundreds of naked women on bikes.

This photo shoot is one of several that took place during his June 3, 2007 Amsterdam ‘installation’ (as Tunick calls these art events).

Floortje van Dijck reports in Dutch daily De Pers about her own participation, first in the parking garage and later on her bike on a nearby bridge.

“We had to stand on bikes along the spiral onramps of the parking structure. This was easier said then done, as there was nothing to hold on to.”

Indeed, some participants report that they felt afraid when at one point they were instructed to stand on the chairs, with their backs to the camera, and then to lean back.

“You are meters above the ground,” van Dijck writes. “The photographer’s assistents are shouting instructions. Apparently someone on the second tier is not yet positioned correctly. But then, no one said that participating in a work of art would be comfortable.”

Stiff Nipples and Goosebumps

“With stiff nipples and goosebumps 2.000 people change from difficult position to difficult position.”

“I am naked, but it has nothing sexual, nothing strange about it. Between all these nude people I feel at ease, though I would have preferred the temperature to be about ten degrees warmer.”

Next the men and women are separated. The men are directed to a photo shoot at the gas station next to the parking garage.

Meanwhile, the women with bikes — selected out of the larger group of women — make their way to a bridge across the Lijnbaansgracht canal.

There is some giggling, but Tunick repeats his “Don’t smile!” like mantra.

“I’m nog laughing that much either. It is now light and outside the safe intimacy of the parking structure the eyes of the cameras and the paparazzi on the other side of the canal suddenly make me feel very naked and vulnerable.”

As natural as the nudity felt within the protection of the naked group, so unnatural it feels as soon as the shoot is over, van Dijck says. “It will take a while before we are truly free.”

Incidentally, when van Dijck asked others why they participated in the photo shoot, most answered, “for kicks,” “out of curiosity,” or “because I like his work.”

While some participants and onlookers no doubt were attracted by the prospect of seeing naked people, the Dutch generally have an easy-going attitude toward nudity.

SAN DIEGO (Hollywood Reporter) - The characters Juliet Burke (Elizabeth Mitchell) and Daniel Faraday (Jeremy Davies) will be back on ABC's "Lost" next year, along with several other characters who haven't been seen since the first season, producers said over the weekend during a panel presentation at the Comic-Con convention.

The revelation confirms reports that suggested a "Lost" reunion of sorts for the final season. In May's finale, the castaways detonated a bomb on the mysterious island in hopes of resetting the last several years of their lives.

The news was among a scant few tidbits dropped during a well-produced hour in San Diego that featured several new mock ads and parody shorts, but no new video from the final season.

"There's a good chance you'll be seeing many characters you haven't seen since the first season again," said executive producer Damon Lindelof.

The final season, producers said, will in some ways resemble the first.

"(In the first season, the characters) were running around the jungle, things felt intense and surprising and (there was) the emotional discovery about the characters," said executive producer Carlton Cuse. "We have a way that we're going to be able to do that in the final season too."

Yet fans shouldn't think that any sort of narrative reboot will invalidate everything that's already happened, "because that would be a real big cheat," said Jorge Garcia, who plays Hugo on the show.

"Just trust us," reassured Cuse.

The show will also employ a new narrative device that's unique to the final season.

"The time-travel season is over, the flash-forward season is over," Lindelof said. "We're going to do something different."

As for lingering mysteries about the show's story, "everything that matters we're gonna answer," assured Lindelof.

Fans camped overnight to see the "Lost" panel at Comic-Con, which occupied the pop-culture convention's largest ballroom, usually reserved for presentations on major summer movies.

Other news from the panel:

* The matter of the mysterious Dharma food drops will be solved ... but there won't be much about the Dharma Initiative in the final season.

* Asked if the mysterious Jacob has ever appeared as any other character in the series, Lindelof said "no."

Scientists have developed the drink at the firm’s laboratories in Atlanta, Georgia, ensuring it will not curdle in its 8oz aluminium bottle.

Going under the name Vio, Coca-Cola has begun test-marketing the carbonated drink at natural food stores and delis in New York It sells for about £1.50 a bottle, no chilling required. One of Coke’s copywriters claims it tastes “like a birthday party for a polar bear”.

It comes in four “natural” flavours — peach mango, berry, citrus and tropical colada — and could even be marketed as a healthy nutritional drink. But it has 26g of sugar a bottle, on a par with other non-diet Coca-Cola products, and 1.5g of fat.

A flavour tester for BevNET.com, a drink industry research site, who tasted the citrus version, said: “It’s big on milk flavour and, as a result, has a somewhat creamy body. It didn’t seem sweet until you consumed almost a whole bottle.”

The drink is part of a wider Coke initiative called Project Life to develop milk-based products. If it is a success in the United States it could be launched globally.

Coca-Cola GB said there were no plans for a British version but added: “We are constantly listening to consumers.”

David Jago, director of insight and innovation at Mintel, the consumer research firm, said: “I suspect it is a bit of a novelty. British people will expect a milk drink to be chilled and will be suspicious if they see it on the shelves.”

Dairy farmers hope the drink could boost milk consumption.

David Cotton, vice-chairman of the Royal Association of British Dairy Farmers, said: “Anything that helps to sell milk is great. If Coca-Cola want to market fizzy milk and give us the odd shilling, we would be very happy.”

A massive cave recently uncovered in a remote Vietnamese jungle is the largest single cave passage yet found, a new survey shows.

At 262-by-262 feet (80-by-80 meters) in most places, the Son Doong cave beats out the previous world-record holder, Deer Cave in the Malaysian section of the island of Borneo.

Deer Cave is no less than 300-by-300 feet (91-by-91 meters), but it's only about a mile (1.6 kilometers) long.

By contrast, explorers walked 2.8 miles (4.5 kilometers) into Son Doong, in Phong Nha-Ke Bang National Park, before being blocked by seasonal floodwaters—and they think that the passage is even longer.

In addition, for a couple of miles Son Doong reaches more than 460-by-460 feet (140-by-140 meters), said Adam Spillane, a member of the British Cave Research Association expedition that explored the massive cavern.

Spillane was in the first of two groups to enter the cave. His team followed the passage as far as a 46-foot-high (14-meter-high) wall.

"The second team that went in got flooded out," he said. "We're going back next year to climb that wall and explore the cave further."

As Lost fans are already well aware--or should be, anyway--the show's creative team gave its final presentation at Comic-Con over the weekend, dropping hints about what's to come whenLost wraps up next year. Details from the panel are available from our own Todd VanDerWerff,here. Full video of the panel can be found on YouTube, or embedded on Doc Arzt's Lost Blog. But if you just want to see the choicest bits of video prepared especially for the panel, here they are:

That first piece is a commercial for the Hurley-owned fast food franchise Mr. Cluck's. The second (shot from the Comic-Con audience) is an America's Most Wanted segment about Kate. Both offer some interesting teases for what the explosive Season Five finale may have wrought.

Also new from Lost-ville: A new set of videos, posted monthly on abc.com, revealing secrets of The DHARMA Initiative via a fake '80s In Search Of...-style show. Promises to be fun. Here's episode one:

District 9," filmed in a quasi-documentary style, the $30-million special-effects-heavy film from newcomer Neill Blomkamp, produced by genre-master Peter Jackson, follows the social and geo-political repercussions of aliens crash-landing in Johannesburg where they are sequestered in an apartheid-style homeland, treated like refugees and forced to work for humans. They soon find a kindred spirit in a government agent that is exposed to their biotechnology.

After 48 seconds of documentary-style interviews with people expressing concerns about recent immigrants, District 9 zooms into high gear with a spaceship crash landing impact. An alien interrogation ensues, but by then an intriguing framework sells the idea that this won’t be your ordinary special-effects-crazed thriller. The concept for this movie is unique. In a world where aliens existed the first thing a government would need to do to manage their existence, with regulations and restrictions, curfews, news of where you can and can't go.

"District 9" producer Peter Jackson took pains to explain to the LA Times that "It's a unique take on the science-fiction genre," he said. "It has dramatized sequences and uses home movie clips. But it's not like 'Cloverfield.' It doesn't remind you of anyone else's movie."

The movie's off-line promotions employ signage that deliberately echoes "Whites only" placards once seen in the South as well as cultural touchstones from Blomkamp's upbringing in apartheid-era South Africa. "Warning: Restricted area for humans only," reads an ad painted on a New York City wall.

D-9.com serves as a primer to the self-contained world of "District 9," detailing security guidelines for humans and "non-humans."

Here's a couple of the new "Lost" universe mock ads that were part of the show's Comic-Con presentation, plus a fan video from the panel itself. Enjoy...

Here's the setup: At the start of the "Lost" panel, executive producers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse presented a locked box they said contained the last page of the final episode's script and that they would open this box on Jimmy Kimmel Live after the show's finale next year.

Then, near the end of the session, a rogue Josh Holloway takes the stage, mock Taser zaps Lindelof and forces Cuse to unlock the box so the final "Lost" scene can be revealed to the Comic-Con crowd.

Watch the video, before reading the rest below, as not to spoil the fun ...

OK, you finish the video? Do that first....

This gag had the audience rolling. But what made it even funnier was that at the "Heroes" panel a few hours later, producers talked about how the fourth season really does have a circus -- there's a dark carnival recruiting heroes throughout next season. You figure "Lost" writers heard about the carnival subplot and used it to add an all-too-plausible element to their gleeful mocking of the other kid attending their high school of serialized TV shows. Also, I can watch Benjamin Linus ask, "What the f--k is this?" all day.

by Chris Nashawaty

Over the past few months, a lot of ink has been spilled about how 1939 was the greatest year in movies ever. After all, that was the year of The Wizard of Oz and Gone with the Wind. Granted, not a bad double whammy. And it didn't stop there: 1939 also was the year of Stagecoach, Wuthering Heights, Love Affair, Gunga Din, Dark Victory, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, and The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Those are all celluloid gems, no doubt about it. But aside from the first two, how many of them make you honestly want to play hooky and watch right this second?

I thought so.

So let me put forth an alternate argument. When it comes to the year-in-film you really want to waste a Cheetos-snarfing afternoon on the sofa with, all you have to do is go back 25 years. Will the cinema eggheads and film snobs ever agree with this? Of course not. Not when you're dealing with movies like Ghostbusters (pictured), Bachelor Party, and Gremlins. But personally, I'll take 1984 over just about any other Hollywood vintage. Here's a month-by-month argument (with embedded clips!) why...

January-The Lonely Guy-Broadway Danny Rose...which includes this shootout scene in a room full of helium.

February-A little Kevin Bacon movie you may have heard of...

March-Splash (Part of a great one-two punch of pre-serious Tom Hanks from the year, along with BachelorParty)-Romancing the Stone-And only the greatest movie about rock & roll ever made...

April-Suburbia-Friday the 13th -- The Final Chapter (Don't laugh, it's one of the few good ones. With Corey Feldman as a pint-sized psycho)-And Rick Springfield "in his sizzling motion picture debut"...

May-Mel Gibson shirtless in The Bounty-Robert Redford swinging for the fences in The Natural-Harrison Ford and Short Round eating chilled monkey brains in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom-Lil' Drew Barrymore being all spooky in Firestarter-And, of course, this...

June-Sergio Leone's Once Upon a Time in America-Star Trek III: The Search For Spock -Gremlins-Bachelor Party-Top Secret!-The Pope of Greenwich Village-The Karate Kid-Conan the Destroyer-Cannonball Run II-And...

OAKLAND, California (CNN) -- Richard Lee greets students, shopkeepers and tourists as he rolls his wheelchair down Broadway at the speed of a brisk jog, hailing them with, "Hi. How ya doin'?"

Marijuana activist Richard Lee is a local celebrity in the small district of Oakland, California, called Oaksterdam.

In this nine-block district of Oakland, California, called Oaksterdam, Lee is a celebrity.

Oaksterdam is Lee's brainchild, a small pocket of urban renewal built on a thriving trade in medical marijuana. The district's name comes from a marriage of Oakland and Amsterdam, a city in the Netherlands renowned for its easy attitude toward sex and drugs.

Lee is the founder of Oaksterdam University, which he describes as a trade school that specializes in all things marijuana: how to grow it, how to market it, how to consume it. The school, which has a curriculum, classes and teachers, claims 3,500 graduates.

A recent California Field Poll showed that more than half the people in the state, where marijuana for medical use was approved more than a decade ago, would approve of decriminalizing pot.

The state's faltering economy is one reason why. If legalized, marijuana could become California's No. 1 cash crop. It could bring in an estimated $1 billion a year in state taxes.

Democratic State Assemblyman Tom Ammiano is spearheading a cannabis legalization bill in the California Assembly. He believes the state's need to increase tax revenues will work in his bill's favor.

"I think it's a seductive part of the equation," he says.

Ammiano says there are a number of ways legalized pot could be marketed, "It could be a Walgreens, it could be a hospital, a medical marijuana facility, whatever could be convenient. Adequate enforcement of the rules. Nobody under 21. No driving under the influence."

"I think we ought to study very carefully what other countries are doing that have legalized marijuana," Schwarzenegger says.

But Ammiano says selling a legalized marijuana bill to his fellow legislators remains a delicate matter.

"If we held the vote in the hallway, we'd have it done," Ammiano says. "But people are necessarily cautious. They are up for re-election."

And that is why Lee believes voters will approve a marijuana initiative long before the state Assembly acts. Sitting under grow lights in a warehouse filled with hundreds of marijuana plants, Lee sums it up this way: "For some people cannabis is like a religion. As passionate as some people are about their religions and freedom to think what they want and to worship as they want."

But all of that is baloney to Paul Chabot. He is president of the Coalition for a Drug Free California. He says voters should not be fooled by promises of big bucks flowing to the state from marijuana taxes.

"It's their way of sort of desensitizing our communities, our state and our nation to a drug problem that we clearly need to put our foot down on, and say, 'No more. Enough is enough.' "

Chabot points out that California's medical marijuana law has been poorly regulated, and he expects more of the same if marijuana becomes legalized for everyone.

But a substantial number of Californians seem to believe that no amount of enforcement is going to make pot go away -- and that it's time for the state to begin taking a cut of the action.

Ancient history books are littered with examples of cities that were destroyed, abandoned or swallowed up by the sea. The existence of some have never been proved. The remnants of others can still be visited.

Troy

Remains of the fabled city from the pages of Homer were discovered in the 19th century in Anatolia in Turkey. Legend has it that, following a siege, the Greeks plundered and then burnt the settlement to the ground. At an ancient mound at Hisarlik, archeologists have found 20ft walls and evidence of nine cities at the site, one of which could be the sacked city.

My Favorite Blogs

Ian M. Sherwin Giclée

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All you art collectors out there. Here is a chance to get a Giclee copy of some of Ian M Sherwin work. Ian is planning on doing a whole series of Marblehead, Massachusetts paintings.His work is amazing.